City of New York : Tips for New York Trip

New York Information

New York City Tips

New York Tips
Location of New York
The city's five boroughs-the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island-are linked by a series of bridges, tunnels and ferries.

Manhattan is an island only 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles (at the widest). Except at its southern and northern tips, it has avemues running north and south, streets east and west. Traffic is generally one way going east on even-numbered streets, one way going west on odd-numbered streets.

Fifth Avenue divides Manhattan into East Side and West Side. Street addresses increase with their distance from Fifth, usually by 100 per block.

Twenty norh-south blocks equal a mile.

If you're at 14th Street and your destination is 50th Street, you'll be travelling uptown to get to midtown. This "Up or Down" is quite important when you get on the subway because the destination of Subway seems not familiar with visitors. Please guess that you cannot remember all area name in Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens.

Sixth Avenue is formally named Avenue of the Americas; both terms are used.

Street Peddlers
Before you buy a watch, purse of other items from an unlicensed street peddler, note that you might be supporting criminal activity and you might be buying counterfeit or low-quality merchandise.

Street Smarts
Basic Geography : Fifth Avenue divides the city between east and west. Street numbers begin at Fifth Avenue. so 2 W.57th Street is just a few steps to the west of Fifth Avenue, while 2 E.57th St. is just to the east. Most streets in Manhattan are one-way. With a few exceptions. traffic on even-numbered streets travels east. and traffic on odd-numbered streets travels west. Traffic on major crosstown streets, including Canal, Houston, 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 72nd. 79th and 86th Sts., traveles in both directions. To those familiar with the Big Apple. "downtown" doesn't connote the city center. Rather, "downtown" simply means "south". and "uptown" means "north".


�@	West Side							East Side
Street	11th Ave	Broad- way	10th Ave	9th Ave	8th Ave	7th Ave	6th Ave	5th Ave	Madi son Ave	Park Ave	Lexing ton Ave	3rd Ave	2nd Ave	1st Ave
86	545	2360	546	543	262	Central Park		1050	1175	1040	1280	1538	1660	1652
84	500	2321	498	504	241			1033	1134	1000	1248	1493	1619	1622
82	465	2282	460	460	225			1014	1089	962	1215	1450	1583	1578
80	425	2240	422	418	211			991	1055	920	1173	1412	1538	1540
78	390	2201	377	286	200			972	1011	885	1125	1374	1500	1495
76	344	2161	343	341	170			952	975	840	1029	1329	1465	1466
74	300	2121	301	305	145			930	937	799	1034	1291	1415	1394
72	262	2081	263	260	125			909	894	760	1003	1251	1392	1345
70	230	2040	201	220	101			896	854	720	963	1220	1328	1302
68	176	2016	181	180	88			870	815	680	925	1175	1295	1267
66	165	1960	150	147	65			850	772	640	889	1130	1260	1224
64	110	1920	111	101	50			833	735	600	843	1095	1223	1170
62	44	1884	70	61	25			812	690	564	806	1050	1177	1130
60	20	1841	20	27	1			796	654	521	767	1010	1143	1099
58	854	1796	899	910	990	992	1425	767	625	480	722	979	1105	1066
56	823	1755	857	863	953	881	1381	725	575	440	678	936	1066	1024
54	790	1710	812	817	910	842	1345	689	532	400	641	900	1024	987
52	740	1675	777	783	870	800	1301	663	501	360	599	875	987	947
50	706	1633	734	741	830	762	1270	630	452	320	557	820	944	886
48	665	1595	688	701	790	723	1221	600	410	280	518	777	901	866
46	636	1555	653	664	737	701	1180	564	380	250	480	750	862	821
44	595	1514	624	623	701	Times	1150	530	341	Grand	441	708	828	799
42	554	1481	587	584	660	Square	1100	500	330	Central	403	669	800	U.N.
40	525	1435	535	541	620	560	1065	461	284	100	355	622	748	700
38	464	1400	500	506	570	525	1020	424	260	70	315	580	707	675
36	450	1352	475	468	520	485	989	389	218	40	283	542	665	630
34	405	Macy's	442	440	480	450	Herald	366	185	10	250	510	625	603
32	360	1260	�@	390	460	401	Square	320	152	2	200	468	585	550
30	319	1220	351	352	404	363	855	282	118	443	161	432	545	520
28	280	1178	315	314	366	322	816	250	79	404	119	396	501	485
26	260	1140	289	280	322	283	775	225	45	363	81	353	463	455
24	202	1107	242	231	282	245	753	201	25	323	41	330	421	400
22	164	945	210	198	236	211	709	175	1	300	18	283	384	377
20	125	907	162	164	198	170	655	135	�@	254	1	244	345	345
18	80	873	130	130	161	140	625	111	�@	222	65	205	310	313
16	54	21	99	92	126	100	575	85	�@	184	35	180	301	284
14	25	Union Sq.	58	48	81	64	534	69	�@	Union Sq	2	127	231	239

	West End	Ams- terdam	Columbus	Central Park West	�@	�@	5th	5th	Madison	Park	Lexing ton	3rd	2nd	1st
	�@	300	200	100	�@	�@	0	1	�@	100	140	200	300	400
	*Upper West Side			�@	�@	�@	�@	*Upper East Side			�@	�@	�@	�@
	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@	�@
	11th	10th	9th	8th	7th	6th	5th	5th	Madison	Park	Lexington	3rd	2nd	1st
	�@	500	400	300	200	100	0	1	�@	100	140	200	300	400
	*Midtown West - Chelsea							*Midtown East - Gramercy

Tipping
The standard is 15%-20% in restaurants and for taxcab rides. 10%-15% in bars. In restaurants, locals just leave double the tax as a tip. Large parties at restaurants will frequently find their gratuity already included. Give a hotel porter $1 for one or two bags, and the doorperson $1 for hailing a cab. Do not tip the theatre usher.

It would be easier for you to remember that only 4 situations you should pay tip. 1) Taxi, 2) Restaurant, 3) Pillow, 4) Portarage. That's so easy. If you wish to pay restaurant fee by credit card, don't worry. You can write down your tip on the bill. The easiest way to remember the rate of tip is double of tax. In NYC, the sales tax would be 8.25% and 16% is enough.

Smoking
Smoking is prohibite in indoor public spaces, including restaurants amd bars. except registrered cigar bars. (Restaurants with outdoor dining may set aside 25% of that space to accomodate smokers.) Smoking is also prohibited in taxis and on buses and the subway.

Taxis
Taxis can be hailed on the street or found at taxi stands at major hotels and transportation hubs. A taxi driver seeking passengers turns on the middle section of the outside roof light ; If the outer ends of the light, labeled "off-duty", are on, or if no lights are on, the taxi is not avairable. It's best to hail a taxi already travelling in the direction in which you want to go. Note that only yellow taxis are permitted by law to pick up passengers without pre-arrangement; it is likely that you will be overcharged if you use a non-yellow taxi. In case of difficulties, the Tax & Limousine Commision' phone number is 212-692-8294.

Lost and Found
You should remember that almost all lost belongings cannot be back to the original holder, this is common to world wide big cities. I would like to recommend that you must make yourself confident to keep credit card, passport and boarding pass with usual bag. If you carry unusual one, it might be lost or stolen. Moreover, I will recommend that you should have limited money and belongings in case for the lost. I have an experience that I lost my bag with vide camera on the 3rd sheet of cab. Unfortunately the bag was wet by rain and the cab had 3 rows so that I put the wet bag on the 3rd sheet. I only remember the driver's first name and it could not help finding the driver from the taxi center at JFK. To avoid this, I strongly recommend to get receipt at any time !

Why is NYC Called the Big Apple?
In the 1920s, a sportswriter for the Morning Telegraph named John Fitzgerald overheard stablehands in New Orleans refer to NYC's racetracks as "the Big Apple." He named his column "Around the Big Apple." A decade later, jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to New York City, and especially Harlem, as the jazz capital of the world. There are many apples on the trees of success, they were saying, but when you pick New York City, you pick the big apple.

Time difference
The time difference between Japan and NYC is -14 hours in Winter, -13 hours in Summer. In other way, NYC time is TYO time + 10 (11 in summer) hours - 1 day = NYC time. It means, if TOKYO is at 10:00 AM, 20:00 in Winter and 21:00 in summer. The planed departed in the afternoon will arrive approximately same time as departure, so it would be difficult to adjust once you fell in sleep. It would be recommended to stay mid night and wake up rather early. And also if you can have a enough sleep in the aircraft, you are so lucky because sometimes somebody always bother your sleep during the flight. You need to take care your health condition when you come abroad the half-a-day time difference zone.

Tokyo	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
Summer	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	0	1	2	3
Winter	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	0	1	2

Weather in New York
Spring and Autumn is short in New York and the gap between highest and lowest temperature here. In the Summer, sometimes the highest temperature will be over 30 degrees of celcius. In the Winter, it is usually cold and sometimes the temperature is under minus 10 degrees of celcius. You'd better prepare the clothes for cold.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Average temp. (°F)	32.4	34.8	42.4	52.3	62.5	71.4	76.9	75.6	68.2	57.3	47.4	37.7
Average temp. (°C)	0.2	1.5	5.7	11.3	16.9	21.9	24.9	24.2	20.1	14.0	8.6	3.2
High temperature (°F)	38.4	41.3	49.7	60.3	70.7	79.2	84.5	82.9	75.4	64.2	53.5	43.4
Low temperature (°F)	26.4	28.3	35.2	44.3	54.3	63.6	69.3	68.3	61.1	50.3	41.3	31.8
Precipitation (in)	3.8	2.9	4.1	3.9	4.4	3.7	4.5	4.1	4.0	3.5	3.9	3.7

The electricity
The voltage in New York is 110-120 volts with 60Hz of frequency. It is avairable to use Japanese plug without adaptor.

The Restroom
Because of the security reason, the public restroom is limitted in New York. If you go to the restaurant or cafe, you'd better to use restroom.

The Size of Clothes

Suit (Men's)	Japan	S		M		L		LL
Suit (Men's)	USA	44	46	48	50	52	54	56
Lady's	Japan	7	9	11	13	15	17	19
Lady's	USA	4	6	8	10	12	14	16

The Internet Connection
You can access to the internet at visitors' center but it will take so long time for waiting and will be only avairable for just ten or fifteen minutes. Instead of that, you can connect at internet cafe.
- easyInternet 234 W.42nd St. (Bet 7th and 8th).
- CYBER CAFE Times Square 250 W. 49th St. (Bet 8th and Broadway).

The Restaurant where the night view is good
- THE VIEW : 1535 Broadway at 45th St.
- RAINBOW ROOM : 30 Rockefeller Plaza at 49th St., 65th Floor.
- TOP OF THE TOWER : 3 Mitchell Pl. at 49th St. & 1st Ave.
- THE RIVER CAFE : 1 Water St. on the East River in Brooklyn
- WORLD YACHT DINING CRISES : Pier 81, W. 41st St.

The MTA fee change
Consequently from the last year, the fee will be changed again from Feb. 2005.
- 7-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard : $21 to $24.
- 30-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard : $70 to $76.
*The one ride fee ($2.00) will not be changed.

The most expensive residential area
Soho and Tribecca is the most expensive residential area among all of the United States. The room with 3 bed room might be rent by $6,000 per month and 2900 thousand dollar for sale.

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